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In the Mirror Series: How Seeing Ourselves More Clearly Can Make the World a Better Place

Part 2: Mirror, Mirror, on the wall…

Have you ever been merrily row, row, rowing along the river of life and suddenly had a rude awakening? Someone says something that upends your sense of who you are and now your row boat is steadily taking on water, if it hasn’t capsized already.

You are a selfish person.

You are not a team player.

You are a terrible father / daughter / [insert relationship]

What just happened?

A fundamental problem that all of us face is our ability to see ourselves clearly. Why is that, you might ask?

Our inability to see our true selves is a result of both lack of reliable feedback from those around us and our inability to distinguish from reliable and unreliable feedback.

Most of the time, other people are a poor mirror through which to see ourselves. Our friends, colleagues, and family, no matter how clearly they see us, generally sugarcoat things in order to avoid conflict or sometimes because they just don’t care enough to get into it with us.

In Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott shares how in a work context, people develop best when they receive Radical Candor, which is when you are ChallengedDirectly by people who CarePersonally about you.

Do you know someone, maybe they look like you, who during their performance evaluation is criticized for the first time about things that were never mentioned before? Does that make you more or less likely to be able to trust that feedback and benefit from it?

Do you know someone who has had a rough year performance wise, but it is never mentioned in the performance evaluation and instead they are given a generic “good” review?

And finally, do you know someone who is a wrecking ball in their personal life, but is always the last person to know and the knowledge usually comes in a severe fashion?

Why is this important, Joe? I have a good life and though I'm not perfect, do I really need to constantly worry about what others think of me? This sounds like a recipe for always being fearful and disappointing others.

I wholeheartedly agree that walking around constantly trying to please everybody is a recipe for disaster. Instead, what I’m focusing on is getting a realistic assessment of who you are. The reason this is important you need to see yourself as you truly are in order to improve.

Imagine a tennis player who has a horrible serve, but thinks it is great. So instead, they work day and night on their backhand and neglect their serve. This is find in the court of their mind and even during practice, but when it comes to the real game, they will falter.

So how do we get people to give us the candid feedback we need to improve?

Step 1. Ask sincerely for feedback. You’ll need to ask more than once and no one will believe that you really want it. So keep asking.

Step 2. When you receive feedback that upsets you or that find unbelievable, the only thing you should do is acknowledge the toughness of the feedback on you and thank the person for being courageous and caring enough to share it with you.

Step 3. In private, decide what you want to do with the feedback. Pay special attention to feedback you think is ridiculous, but more than one person has shared it.

The key thing to remember is you will grow tremendously and improve your life when you are able to see clearly the areas that need to be improved.

Your Move: Who will you dare ask for feedback? And how will you handle it?